POLICE stopped a convoy of motorcycle-riding militant workers from entering the city to mark the May 1, International Labor Day celebration yesterday.
Lt. Col. Evan Viñas, spokesperson of the Cagayan de Oro City Police Office said armed policemen from their City Mobile Force stopped around 70 members of the militant Kilusang Mayo Uno at the outskirts of Barangay Bugo, this city yesterday morning.
Viñas said the policemen asked the workers who were riding motorcycles and vehicles to alight and present their identification cards and barangay clearances.
“After they were all checked out, we allowed them to enter the city more than an hour later,” Viñas said in a phone interview.
Viñas said the order to monitor the movement of militant workers came from PNP headquarters in Camp Crame and ordered the police nationwide to secure highways and parks where workers are expected to hold rallies.
KMU spokesperson Teresita Hadman said the police allowed them to enter Cagayan de Oro at 10 am Monday after detaining them for three hours under the scorching heat.
“The police stopped our convoy at around 6 am and we endured more than four hours under the sun,” Hadman told dxIF Bombo Radyo.
Hadman said the KMU workers only wanted to parade around the city with their motorcycles and vehicles but would refrain from holding a political rally.
She said they also planned to go to the regional office of the Department of Labor and Employment in Corrales Street to meet with the government officials and air their grievances.
Lawyer Beverly Musni of the Union of People’s Lawyers in Mindanao slammed the police for detaining the workers and demanding for their identification cards.
“The police officer who leads the blocking the convoy has covered his name cloth to hide his identity. Yet he demanded knowing the identities of the workers,” Musni said.
Musni said the workers have every right to be on the streets on Labor Day to celebrate and police officers should be aware of that.
